Silver coin
The earliest coins in the world were minted in the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor around 600 BC.
[1] The concept of coinage, i.e. stamped lumps of metal of a specified weight, quickly spread to adjacent regions, such as Aegina.
These early Greek silver coins were denominated in staters or drachmas and its fractions (obols).
The most powerful of their kings, Alexander the Great eventually launched an attack on the Persian Empire, defeating and conquering it.
Alexander's Empire fell apart after his death in 323 BC, and the eastern mediterranean region and western Asia (previously Persian territory) were divided into a small number of kingdoms, replacing the city-state as the principal unit of Greek government.
While much of the Greek world was being transformed into monarchies, the Romans were expanding their control throughout the Italian Peninsula.
A silver miliaresion was developed, usually with a cross on steps obverse and an inscription forming the reverse.
Later, the cup-shaped (or 'scyphate') trachy were issued, but the silver content of these rapidly declined towards only a few per cent, finally ending up as a pure copper coin after the Fourth Crusade (13th century).
Various Arabic dynasties continued to issue dirhems for centuries after the demise of the classical caliphates.
In medieval Europe (outside the Byzantine Empire), the coinage was very complex, as the types were often different from one (small) region to another.
For instance, the silver sceattas were a popular type of coin in England, the Netherlands and the Frisian region.
While the Byzantine Empire in the Balkans was crumbling, a new power was growing strong in Asia Minor: the Ottoman state.
With the accession of the Safavid dynasty, Persia emerged as an independent state, also in terms of language and identity.
[3] Later on, the Mughal Emperors standardised this coinage of tri-metalism across the sub-continent in order to consolidate the monetary system.
With the Spanish colonization of the Americas after 1492, there were significant finds in both New Spain (Mexico) in various sites in mainly in the zone outside indigenous settlement and in Peru, with the discovery of the great silver mine of Potosí (in modern Bolivia).
Mexican silver coins continued to be exported to China in the late nineteenth-century.
Production of silver in the Americas influenced trade and politics in Europe and transformed European relations with other regions of the world, particularly China and the Ottoman Empire.
All countries of Europe eventually began to issue large size silver coins.
Europeans then used these silver coins to purchase goods abroad which eventually led to inflation.
These carry all sorts of designs, from assayer/mine-backed bullion to engravable gifts, automobiles, firearms, armed forces commemorative, and holidays.
Similarly, both government and private sector mints issue silver bars for investors and collectors without a nominal face value.
[8][9] The tradition continues in modern times, for example, officers of USS New Orleans placed 33 coins heads up under her foremast and mainmast before she was launched in 1933 and USS Higgins, commissioned in 1999, had 11 coins specially selected for her mast stepping.
